Linda Ng

Fieldwork: Communication Challenge Reflection

Salt Lake County Adaptive Recreation

Did you face any communication challenges? Describe the challenge and explain
how you dealt with it.

I really appreciated this fieldwork experience because I was able to see a variety

of interactions, as related to how staff members support their adaptive recreation

participants. Clients’ participation is very much related to the support that staff is able to

provide. During this experience, there was a staff member who, upon introducing

ourselves as students, began telling us of his experience and how he believes that

these adaptive recreation programs are more effective than physical and occupational

therapy. There was not necessarily a conflict, but I imagined that if we were to work

together in the future, we would have to build a relationship to also develop his buy-in to

allow future positive interactions with occupational therapy. Later, while completing part

of our needs assessment at a staff meeting, I made effort to explain what our program

is, what we hope to do with our program, and what we have to offer. I hoped to educate

about what value our profession has, while sharing ideas on how it is relevant to their

specific programs and their clients. We did not have any further interaction with this staff

member, but I hope that some education about our program might be able to at least

open his perspective to the value of occupational and physical therapy. This experience

was valuable because it made me think about the buy-in from staff members for our

program. The success of our profession in this setting relies on the implementation of

concepts by staff members, which also requires them to see its value.